New Orleans’ premier purveyors of roof raising, jazz infused, funk and hip hop fuelled marching band music, Hot 8 Brass Band can be found at the heart of a current fever for all things brass.
Highlighted by their recent Grammy nomination for their striking second album, ‘The Life & Times Of… The Hot 8 Brass Band’, Hot 8 have received immense accolades from local, national, and international media outlets;
The BBC has called the album “an appealing metaphor for their home city’s hope and vitality”; The Guardian (London): “No outfit has done more than the Hot 8 to recast the long tradition of New Orleans marching music for modern times. This second album finds them in incendiary form.”
“Everyone knows what this band has been through,” says bandleader and sousaphone player Bennie Pete. “Our story is the story of the New Orleans streets. This album just tells those stories to the world.”
New Orleans’s own Hot 8 Brass Band has epitomized New Orleans street music for two decades. The band plays traditional Second Line parades, hosted each Sunday afternoon by Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, infusing their performance with the funk and energy that makes New Orleans music loved around the world. The members of the Hot 8 were born and raised in New Orleans and many began playing together in high school. Today, the Hot 8 combines local performances with national and international appearances. With their third LP, ‘Tombstone’ closely following sister album ‘The Life & Times Of…’ (Nov 2012), Hot 8 have gained widespread coverage and support.
They have been featured in the HBO series Treme, in Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke, and on Time-Life Records and Smithsonian Folkways, and regularly tour the US and the World including a Europe and US tour coming up this year.